Heartbreak Hotel
by lovethatleaves
Summary: Casey/Cappie one-parter. Casey and Cappie's first interaction since breaking up, told from Casey's POV.


"Case, you must get out of this bed. Up, up, up! Rise and shine. Look at the sun shining and birds chirping and whatever," Ashleigh screeches, ripping the covers off of me.

"Ash!" I growl, snatching the covers from her reluctant grasp and covering my head – my hair a tangled mess.

"You have to get a grip, Casey Cartwright. You're out of control! It's been, like, forever, anyway," she scoffs with a wave of her hand.

"It's been five days," I mumble from beneath the covers miserably.

"Five days! … It seems like _so_ much longer. Well, whatever. I'm sure Cappie is doing keg stands and/or entering, or viewing, a wet t-shirt contest as we speak."

"Seriously?" I growl, throwing the crumpled covers off and away from me. "You should be stripped of your best friend card for that."

"I'm sorry, okay, I am. You just make me sad. You're like this little puppy that's been dropped off at the pound… that has cancer."

I snort and roll my eyes. "For the record, if you and Travis broke up, I would give you more than FIVE DAYS to grieve. Food for thought."

She shifts before me, shuffling from one foot to the other – her head lowers and she pulls at the shiny bracelets on her arm nervously.

"… you're right, Case. You know I don't deal with heavy things all that well – and I just don't know what to do! I don't know how to fix it and it makes me uncomfortable. I hate seeing -"

"I know, Ash," I say, interrupting her ramble. "It's fine, really. I just kind of want to be left alone right now, okay?"

Involuntary tears begin to form behind my eyes and I blink them away. I will not, refuse to, shed one more tear.

"Well, what if we - " she begins chirpily, but stops abruptly when I shake my head. "Okay, fair enough. Are you hungry, though? Cold? Do you need -"

"I'm good. Promise," I try to smile encouragingly to ease her mind, but sense that it falls short. She smiles at me, rather sadly for someone as perpetually happy as Ashleigh, before leaving our room, closing the door softly behind her.

I sigh, relieved, when the door closes and instantly feel guilt rise in my throat like bile. I'd never wished that Ashleigh wasn't around – and I still don't really want that now. It's just hard to be around her right now. It's hard to verbalize what I'm feeling, and even harder to pretend – pretend that I'm okay, pretend that I'm ready to move on … pretend so many things.

I look down at myself and inwardly cringe. No wonder Ashleigh was worried. I'm an absolute mess - old, mismatched pajamas, a half fallen bun, swollen eyes, no makeup. What a huge bucket of fail, I am. Pathetic.

I bet wherever Cappie is, his eyes are as blue as ever - his hair styled as if he'd taken an hour to fix it when in actuality he hadn't even ran a brush through it. Bastard.

Why did I have to want him like I did? Why, even now? It wasn't fair.

It hurt.

I kick at my comforter one last time, throwing my legs over the side of the bed. Today would not become the same as yesterday. Sure, I hadn't missed my classes since the blowout, but that's about all I'd done. I don't blame Ashleigh for being freaked out.

I really should tell her that.

"I'm going out," I announce resolutely, pushing my shoulders back, even though all they want to do is fall. Don't be pathetic, I chant inside my own head.

"Yay!" Ashleigh cheers, raising her arms above her head excitedly. "I'll go with."

"No, no, that's okay," I quickly hold up a hand to stop her from approaching me at the door. "It won't be a long outing, I'm nowhere near presentable enough to leave campus," I grumble, pulling at my favorite pair of pink track pants self-consciously.

"You look hot even when heartbroken and you know it, don't rub it in," Ashleigh giggles, and I laugh softly.

"If you say so, Ash. I'll be back. Thanks, though… for – well, you know," I shrug helplessly, unable or unwilling to articulate my thoughts.

"Maybe there's a reason I still have that best friend card after all, huh?" She questions, playfully winking at me … which really looks more like a blink.

It causes me to laugh – really laugh – despite everything.

"There definitely is, Ash. At this point… we should, like, laminate your card and decorate it with flowers -"

"Oh, pretty!" She enthuses.

I laugh again, opening the door and swinging it open. "Okay, I'm going before I change my mind. Or chicken out, whatever."

"Make me proud!" Ashleigh yells before I close the door.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

"Large cappuccino, please?" I order, glancing around as people wander around me – talking, laughing … seeming a hell of a lot more happy with themselves and their lives than I do right now.

"Cappuccino, huh? I think a 'Cappie'ccino would be a better choice, but it'll do," he laughs, seeming completely comfortable and at ease – as always.

I, on the other hand, am anything but. My heart sinks in my chest at the sound of his voice from behind me and I feel my eyes close tightly, wanting and wishing to be anywhere but where I currently am.

I never thought I'd feel that way about Cappie. From the moment I met him, I wanted to be around him and when I wasn't with him, I wanted to be.

Now, it just hurts. It reminds me that I can't have him like I once did. It reminds me of the decision I'd made to end things, and it makes me wonder if I would ever find anyone that I loved like I loved him.

"Oh … Hey, Cap," I whisper uncomfortably, glancing at him quickly before looking back at my feet.

His smile fades at the sound of my voice, and for an instant, he looks about as serious as I've ever seen him – including five days ago when I told him it was over … that we were over.

He clears his throat, running a hand through his unruly hair, finally seeming as uncomfortable now as I've been from the moment he approached me. It's about damn time.

"You look – well, you know …" He trails off, shifting from one foot to another, and this could not be more awkward if either of us tried. And it's weird. Things aren't ever awkward when Cappie is around. Cappie could make a nun comfortable in a whore house, so why can't he make this better for us? For me?

The fact that I won't have him to do that for me, ever again, hits me all at once. I feel like crying, or running away. A mixture of both, maybe.

I've never felt so confused in my life, or so lost. One person shouldn't have that kind of power over another, right? My life was fine before Cappie …_ I_ was fine before Cappie.

So, why did I suddenly feel like a stranger in my own skin? Why did everything suddenly feel so foreign to me, and so empty?

"Here you go, Miss," the student behind the counter calls out to me. "Miss?" He questions again, when I don't turn away from Cappie and toward the counter to grab my coffee.

"Oh, sorry – I'm sorry, thanks," I stutter, rather flustered, grabbing the cup from him.

Cappie looks at me rather oddly, and I can only imagine what he's thinking right now. I guess I appear as crazy as I feel. Awesome.

"Well, I guess I'm gonna head back -" I begin, smiling awkwardly, like any of this has been anything but awkward.

"I thought I'd have seen you around before now," Cappie blurts, and my head shoots up from where I'd been looking at the ground. We meet eyes, really meet eyes, for the first time since we'd began talking.

And I'm lost. There's a certain way that Cappie has always looked at me - like maybe he sees past everything else and right down into my soul. I know it sounds cliché and girly, but I feel it every single time he looks at me … really looks at me.

I feel it now, too. I see it now. And it makes me want to take back every wrong word I'd ever said to him, all that I'd said when I ended things. It makes me want to crawl back into his arms and let him back into my heart – not that he'd ever really left it, anyway. More than anything, it makes me want to say to hell with the future, growing up, or moving on.

Who needs any of that when you have someone that really and truly _knows _you? Not the trivial, little things about you, but the things you can't even admit aloud or to yourself. Cappie sees it all. I don't understand it, and maybe I never will. Maybe no one else will ever see me like that … ever.

My already tattered heart pounds in my chest, panicked, at the thought.

"Oh … Oh, well - " I stumble over the words, searching for what to say – what I can say to him that he won't call bullshit on. I come up empty.

"I mean, you said we'd still be friends, right? I guess I just took that to mean that we'd be BFFs forever," he laughs, his entire body relaxing at the lame joke. This was what Cappie liked, this was when he was most comfortable. And who was I to deny him that?

That didn't mean I was ready to play along, though. Not yet.

"Yeah, well, I've just been busy. You know how it gets," I say.

Lame. I'm talking to him like I would someone I hadn't spoken to since high school. Someone I would run into at the mall, or a grocery store, that I had no idea how to relate to – no idea what they'd been doing for the past couple of years and therefore no idea what to say to them.

"Yeah, it's really good that you have Bing there to help you out with all of that then, huh?" He bites out bitterly, advancing toward me a little.

That sparks something inside of me, and I come alive.

"Cut it out, Cappie," I bark. "Evan has nothing to do with us, and he's definitely not why I did what I did." I sigh roughly, crossing my arms over my chest.

"Why did you do what you did then?" He asks softly, looking more childlike than I ever remember seeing him look before. "I mean, things weren't perfect all the time … but I thought we were happy. I thought we had fun," he said, shrugging in confusion.

"I never said that we didn't have fun, did I? Maybe I just need more than fun, and parties, and pie – I don't know, Cap," I whisper, blinking away the tears I feel building behind my lids.

"Yeah … yeah, I guess I get that." He nods, his voice breaking slightly over the last word. I feel my heart clinch and tighten in my chest. Too much, too soon.

"I really do – I have to go, but it was good … seeing you, Cappie," I smile up at him, albeit nervously, taking a sip of my coffee.

"Sure, yeah," he agrees after an extended pause. "I should go, too. Beave has been into fire lately, I should go make sure he hasn't burned the KTT house down in my absence," he chuckles, giving me a charming smile.

"We wouldn't want that," I say, managing to laugh softly with him. It feels good, familiar.

He gives me one last smile, and small wink, before turning and walking away. I watch as he becomes one of many in the crowd of students walking around campus, before turning a corner and disappearing entirely.

I miss him already.


End file.
